What's Causing Your Shaky Hands?

Essential tremor is a neurological condition that causes rhythmic shaking of a body part that you’re unable to control. Essential tremor may affect almost any body part, but it most often occurs in the hands. It’s especially noticeable when you perform simple tasks such as drinking from a glass or tying shoelaces.

Essential tremor usually isn’t dangerous, but it generally worsens over time and can grow to be severe. Essential tremor doesn’t lead to other conditions, but it’s sometimes confused with the shaking of Parkinson's disease or other conditions. It’s most common in people 40 and older.

At Advanced Neurology Specialists, LLC, board-certified neurologist Dr. Cory Lamar and our team specialize in diagnosing tremors of all types and treating any underlying conditions that cause them. If you’re dealing with hands that won’t stop shaking, here’s what you need to know.

Types of tremors

Rest tremors occur when you aren’t moving, while action tremors occur when you deliberately move your muscles.

Action tremors include a number of different types:

Postural tremors

Postural tremors affect you when your body defies gravity in some way, like holding your arms outstretched.

Kinetic tremors

Kinetic tremors accompany voluntary actions, such as opening and closing your eyes or moving your hands up and down.

Intention tremors

Intention tremors occur when you try to do something specific, like pick up a glass or touch a finger to your nose.

Task-specific tremors

Task-specific tremors affect activities like speaking and writing.

Isometric tremors

Isometric tremors affect muscles that aren’t moving but are still performing a function, such as holding a book still.

What causes tremors?

Essential tremor is a condition unto itself. Tremors as a whole are often a symptom of neurological conditions like Parkinson’s disease, stroke, and multiple sclerosis. Other possible causes include:

• Certain asthma medications
• Corticosteroids
• Chemotherapy drugs
• Certain psychiatric and neurological medications
• Heavy metals like lead and mercury
• Exposure to organic solvents or pesticides
• Too much caffeine
• An overactive thyroid
• Liver or kidney failure
• Diabetes

Stress, anxiety, and fatigue can all impact the severity of the underlying tremors.

Treating tremors

How you treat a tremor depends a lot on the underlying cause.

Some medications can be effective in decreasing muscle contractions that cause tremors. These include beta blockers, anti-seizure medicines, tranquilizers, and even Botox® injections.

Other treatments include physical, occupational, and/or speech therapy; a wearable electronic peripheral nerve stimulation device (e.g., Cala Trio, Cala kIQ); and surgical procedures, such as deep brain stimulation that interrupts signals from the thalamus, which causes the tremors.

There’s also noninvasive focused ultrasound thalamotomy, which uses focused sound waves to generate heat, destroying brain tissue in a specific area of the thalamus that causes tremor.

Dr. Lamar takes your medical history, severity of symptoms, and your lifestyle into account to determine which treatment would work best for your case.

If your hands are shaky and you don’t know why, Advanced Neurology Specialists, LLC, can help. Call our Naples, Florida, office at 239-667-5878 to set up a consultation with Dr. Lamar, or book online with us today.